2. amps-preamps
  3. 136421-89400

Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

Greetings all.

I’m a mastering engineer. www.magicgardenmastering.com . We use Acoustic Zen balanced cabling, highly modified Cary 211 FE tube amps, Bricasti M1 SE DAs and Joachim Gerhard’s Allegra speakers. TORUS balanced power comes 220 from the street. The room is excellent, and you would love to hear it.

For 15 years the pre amp/router was a Crane Song Avocet. I paid around $1800 for it.

Recently decided to try a couple of audiophile products in the pre amp stage and was shocked and saddened how bad they were. Yes, the studio designed Avocet has a relay click for each 1db step, and yes it has a rack mounted 2U body with a corded remote, but it’s clear folks are really getting taken to the cleaners on pre amps. The older and highly regarded Boulder 1010 (used price $5500), was just terrible, truly terrible. The new and fully broken in BAT vk-43SE (demo price $7500) was much better, but still had a cloudy tone as compared to the class A Avocet. Not sure if that’s the cap or the transformer, but it made everything less clear and more generic, more distant from the music.

That’s all. Happy listening.
128x128brianlucey
113 responses Add your response
dubulup
15 posts
 
I looked inside this Avocet on the net, and it’s full of opamps, and if 15 years old they’d mainly be TLO5*'s ands NE553*'s which are very ordinary to say the least.

Cheers George
Sometimes HifiGeorge...it’s the circuit not the components.

cheers mate
brianlucey's avatar
brianlucey OP
153 posts
 
Up to you @simao  ... It's all balanced, and I have not used the new one.   It has a nice DA as well, he keeps upgrading the DA as one would expect.

simao's avatar
simao
1,819 posts
 
Oh, but would I be able to swap the avocet (or its current incarnation) with my current pre? Or is a studio component only? The IIe version on Sweetwater looked hella advanced. 
simao's avatar
simao
1,819 posts
 
Exactly. I imagine the Crane adds a powerful presence to your room. 
brianlucey's avatar
brianlucey OP
153 posts
 
@jond Yes mods could work on the BAT without transformer, 6 caps a side on the 42 I think would be a good path, but it’s not worth the hassle.  Sonicraft Jeff does my mods, he’s a genius with great ears.


@dweller "I listened to some equipment and didn’t like it so whomever does like it must be fool"   False my friend, ... I said the Boulder was junk (too many negatives to detail) and the BAT 43se was very good but still veiled.

I never called anyone names, I’m taking about price to performance in this thread. Defensive posts are a waste of time, let’s not bother, ok?

@simao Yes, of course I understand synergy ... I can also listen to one component for it’s factual sound on an island. When you work on the same system in the same excellent room for years, any one piece is clear when swapped out.
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jond's avatar
jond
5,794 posts
 
Brian you tried two preamps with poor results. It doesn't mean you learned anything other than those two units were a poor fit for your listening tastes and system. Glad to hear your old Avocet is holding up and sounding good but don't give up the search,  there are many good preamps besides those two.
Also great to have such a respected mastering engineer in the forums you have some amazing credits. Lastly a question,  you describe the Cary amps as highly modified, if you had to modify the amps to get the sound you wanted do you think modding one of those preamps might have gotten you where you wanted?
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,217 posts
 
Great post.  Cranesong is highly respected.
simao's avatar
simao
1,819 posts
 
Props to the OP. There's always a self-important contrarian ready to pick and pounce despite any initial ethos. 

I suspect the synergy in your room reveals a lot when a part of it is replaced. 
brianlucey's avatar
brianlucey OP
153 posts
 
Parts matter, yet Dave Hill knows what he’s doing.

Avocet distortion is in the range of .001% at +20 dbu -3db is up between 200 and 300KHz

My listening tests are not "respectable"? A rude and ultimately hilarious reply.  Listening is what I do all day every day, for hire by others who can afford anyone, and not for fun. The credits are all online. Have a great day.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
I agree on part of your post, but the other part????

but it’s clear folks are really getting taken to the cleaners on pre amps.
This is true, when many of todays sources have volume control, output stages as good sometimes better that some of these hiend preamps.

For 15 years the pre amp/router was a Crane Song Avocet. I paid around $1800 for it.
I looked inside this Avocet on the net, and it’s full of opamps, and if 15 years old they’d mainly be TLO5*'s ands NE553*'s which are very ordinary to say the least.

Cheers George
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,769 posts
 
Thanks Brian. Interesting. I’ll never forget hearing a top flight stack of Naim amps annihilated by a low rent Croft Micro 3 tube phone preamp back in '87. Ditto for Aragon, Classe, Cyrus, Audiolab and others. I asked Ken Kessler, the reviewer, how somone could like the wooly Aragons and he shrugged and said that is how music actually sounds like. Baffled to this day.

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